


a memory (is your worst enemy)

by Demeter



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Other, genfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demeter/pseuds/Demeter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles is a methodical man, and the first weeks are difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a memory (is your worst enemy)

**Author's Note:**

> This does not adhere to any particular X-men universe, I’m afraid. I’m using a mix of movieverse!X-men (specifically _X-Men: First Class_ ) and Uncanny X-men. I’m also probably picking up details from the different comicverse!X-men.

 

The first weeks are difficult.

 

* * *

 

Charles is a methodical man.

As he stares at Raven’s door - shut, closed, quiet, and locked - he recognizes it’s because he knows how he misses her. It is a strange thing, a missing bone, a lonely phantom in his mind. The echoes of her voice linger like ghosts and he looks up and he looks down. But she isn’t there. Raven isn’t there and sometimes, he drinks cocoa in the kitchen and the sweetness tastes like ash in his mouth.

 

* * *

 

It’s a mistake (it’s  _always_ a mistake) but he finds himself stopping by the chessboard at strange intervals, when he can no longer resist torturing himself, can no longer go without being assailed with an awful wave of longing.

He knows he'll never find someone quite like Erik to play chess with. There's nothing to be done; only time will scrub the wounds and though Charles knows they will not heal, they can possibly scab over. That is the best that can happen and that is what he will accept.

Moira isn’t around. And that little hollowing out of a part of his world makes life easier. Somewhat.

He wishes she were. He wishes she could have lived in both worlds, both CIA and mutant. But she can't. Not now, not right away. That’s a maybe-story in another country, and he's glad that she isn't here with him to see and know that he misses Erik and Raven more with each passing hour. She wouldn’t understand.

(or worse, he thinks. Maybe she would.)

He’d be tempted to take her comfort and take and take and  _take_ , and Charles now knows that he cannot be trusted to always be in the right.

He tucks the chessboard away and closes off the entrance to Raven’s room. They become yet more timorous ghosts in his cavernous mansion.

 

* * *

 

So the days build upon each other and he continues to recruit.

Those early days of banter and wit are gone. He tells these mutants straight and forward what he's offering and what he can give. Some are so grateful, he feels his heart burn in his chest, and he wants to shout that there is a war coming, there will always be a war coming and that they will most likely die with faces still unlined by age. But he doesn't. His school needs students and the X-men – _Moira_ \- needs members.  

The three boys have to grow up in a hurry. They are numb to the fact they have already lost half of their team (to death, to betrayal, to angerfurygrief) and that they have to find more students  _now_ because their numbers are too few and their enemies are too great.

Hank buries himself in the lab and Alex trains most hours of the day; Sean tries very hard to be cheerful and engage the others like normal but there's no longer an answering snicker from Raven or Erik's insistent hand on his back and it stifles his cheer. And to be honest, he misses Moira almost more than Charles because she always had time to ruffle his hair and tell him ginger was the next blonde.

Sometimes at night, Charles can feel their grief throb through the school and he sits in his office and swallows it all, like a sorrowful offering.

 

* * *

 

Life in the mansion is lonely; no one can deny it. No one does.

They gain a few members here and there; the students, teachers, live-ins, all flow steady and sure through the halls. Scott is one of the first and he is this small, skinny thing. He clings to Charles the first weeks, and refuses to sleep in his own bed, preferring the couch in his office. Charles allows it, knows that in Scott’s case, it actually does more good than harm. He is patient and he waits.

By the mark of two months, Scott blossoms. He becomes more confident, he engages Sean in tentative jokes, he shakes off the painful memories from his foster family and becomes a leader.

And he falls wildly, gently in love.

Jean Grey is a force to be reckoned and the two cleave to each other like abandoned ships in the night. Charles almost discourages it at first, because they are young and he feels that both should explore other relationships before attaching so strongly to another. But he hesitates. And then it is too late.

Charles wonders about their future, about the path they may take, and decides that no one can see the future - though there are rumors of a mutant who can do just that - and if he worries too much, why bother living in the first place?

 

* * *

 

When Ororo Munroe comes to him, she is already along in her years and has seen more of the world than he could ever hope.

It is a blessing; she has seen the ugliest side of humans and the kindest. She has been both a gutter rat and a beloved goddess. She takes up the name of _Storm_ like a mantle that is made for her, and she settles into the grooves of the school like she has always been there. The children gravitate toward her, regardless of her stern manner. They find themselves telling her secrets that they do not trust to Charles.

And that hurts, but he understands: he is a figure of authority, they are in awe of him, they  _love_ him, they cannot believe him real, he is a _telepath_.

(a telepath who once had shocking images in his head at all hours when it amused Raven to do so.)

And so she becomes Headmistress.

She is able to give them some peace and serenity. It’s ironic; once upon a time, that was his best and - if he is honest - only ability.

 

* * *

 

He gains a strong teacher in Logan, who takes no shit from anyone, including him.

(Charles never says it's true, will  _never_ admit it, but sometimes, he pretends he’s speaking with Erik at his caustic worst.)

Once upon a time, Logan told them to (very eloquently) ‘fuck off’. Now, he is a broken man with a broken past, but he wants to do better, he  _does_ better.

Logan protects those he promises himself to and if he goes off on motorcycle jaunts for weeks at a time, well, Charles knows what it’s like to want to run from those who love you.

 

* * *

 

There are times he sees Hank lose focus and stare out over the horizon, and he wonders if the boy thinks about Raven, the same as he does. But there is no more Raven.

Raven is dead.

Only Mystique remains, and it’s Mystique who appears on the TV besides Erik, full of rage and beauty and hate hate hate hate hate hate for the humans who never knew that once upon a time, she might have fought for them if they’d only given her a _reason_.

 

* * *

 

When Betsy Braddock shows up at the school, no one knows what to do with her at first. She’s a natural leader, strong in her abilities, and confident. But she clashes with Jean Grey on all accounts and seems to rile Logan to his very bones.

After a while, Charles fears he will need to intervene rather than allow them to hash it out, as is his wont. But then Warren shows up and he seems to calm Betsy, seems to draw her back from her most venomous. Smoothes the sharp edges of her person.

And she is there for him, when Apocalypse cracks his mind and heart and turns his white wings black.

 

* * *

 

They lose some. It’s inevitable.

 

* * *

 

Peter tries. He tries so very hard. But his love is all bound up in his sister, and when she dies, when the Legacy Virus claims her in that horrifying way, he loses his way.

And in the end, they never reclaim him.

He injects himself with the cure, it turns his body into an adamantium case, and he suffocates to save the world.

 

* * *

 

Others come and go. Some are like Kitty, who are little more than children, frightened and wanting a safe space for themselves. Others are like Jubilee, who has known the love of her parents and the kindness of her foster family.

And if Emma Frost appears with jagged edges from the death of her Hellions, well, that’s to be expected for a teacher of mutant students.

And when Rogue is discovered by Logan and brought to the Academy because her family couldn’t stand her powers, that’s all too normal.

Everyone has a story and being a mutant is the thread that binds them together. Far stronger than blood. The shared misery and fear becomes a chain and the newfound, cautious joy smooths the metal into silken steel.  

It is as Charles always hoped.

 

* * *

 

Soon, the school bustles.

Soon, the school has a life to it that it never did when his parents lived there.

Soon, the memories of what once was fade into the cheerful background. He finds himself surrounded by excited children and teens who see a future for the first time in long years. There are adults who slowly heal in the security and sanctity of safety in numbers. It’s not always peaceful, and it’s not always safe, but the X-men grow from a small, determined few into a family with extended branches that stretch from Massachusetts to the world and beyond.

It is his dream and it is coming true.

 

* * *

 

But always, always, always, he thinks of Raven and Erik, and all the mutants who allow their fear and hate and grief to swallow their hearts and minds. They do not hear his words. The do not want to hear his words.

Charles knows. He sees Raven in his head, sees all the times he told her to wear her  _normal_ skin. To hide as she truly is. He does it offhand. He does it drunk. He does it jokingly, he does it at Christmas and in spring, with summer flowers and winter dirges.

Every time, he sees her eyes flicker and her lips tremble.

And every single time, she does it anyway, allows the blue skin to flutter away, squashes her beautiful glowing eyes into dull brown. He never thinks about how she must feel. How it must hurt.

How it must have cut her like sharp shards of glass, to believe that he preferred her any other way.

(because it’s true, he did prefer her soft, pale skin, he didn’t stop to think it through, he  _never_ stopped to think it through and all those years, all that time, she had thought, Raven had believed, Raven had  _known_ that he...)

Some nights, Charles wakes with his heart in his throat and his hand reaching out for someone who will never come back. His injured spine spasms and he is not ashamed to find the sweat of terror rolling off him, and hoarse sobs echoing in the room. He has ever been truthful and he wakes because he is frightened and he is hollow and he knows.

(It’s his fault. And it really is.)

He can’t see how her path will lead anywhere else but death.

 

* * *

 

Charles is a methodical man. But.

Those first few years (and the rest of his life) are difficult.

**Author's Note:**

> This took me over a year to write, though the length is impossibly short for that amount of time. Charles Xavier is one of the most difficult characters for me to write.


End file.
